KIPP Houston superintendent finalist selected

Sehba Ali, the current chief academic officer for KIPP Bay Area Schools, has been named the sole finalist for the KIPP Houston superintendency. If the charter school’s board approves and Ali accepts, she would take over day-to-day operations of the Houston chain from KIPP co-founder Mike Feinberg.

Ali began her career as an English teacher at McReynolds Middle School in Houston ISD through Teach For America. She also taught at YES Prep before moving to the Bay Area, where she opened KIPP Heartwood Academy in 2004.

Ali, currently the chief academic officer of the Bay area schools, earned a masters from Stanford University and completed the Fisher Fellow in the KIPP School Leadership Program in 2003.

The KIPP board is expected to vote on the hiring in December. Ali, who is currently on maternity leave, would start in Houston in July.

Mike Feinberg (Houston Chronicle)

To date, Feinberg, who co-founded KIPP in Houston in 1994, has been the only superintendent of the Houston schools, which now serve about 7,800 students.

He plans to turn his attention full-time to advocacy and fundraising to complete KIPP’s current expansion plan. “I’m not going anywhere, but we need to divide and conquer,” Feinberg said at his recent State of the Schools address.

The Knowledge is Power Program currently includes 109 schools across the country and expects to expand to 200 schools that serve 55,000 students by 2015.